Saturday, March 22, 2014

The Tonto Kid (Resolute Pictures, 1934)

The last
Rex Bell Western that we’ll review for a
while (he wasn’t that good) is a 1934
effort directed by Harry L Fraser (as Harry Frazer), The Tonto Kid.

Tom's daughter Ruth worth seeing

It’s a
skullduggery Western with a plot to pass off a circus girl for a ranch heiress but
there are also stage hold-ups, gallopin’ and shootin’, so never fear. Rex discovers
a platinum deposit, so his luck is in.

Rex
loses Sheik in the first reel so the big white horse plays almost no part. Rex
wears a big black Stetson, not white, as he is a good badman, The Tonto Kid.
Sadly, Earl Dwire’s destined part of aging rancher was taken by white-haired
(or -wigged) Joseph W Girard. Earl does appear but only briefly, and
uncredited, as a deputy. The good news is that there is a last-reel appearance
by Ruth, Tom Mix’s daughter, as the long-lost heiress. She doesn’t seem to mind
at all that her ex-circus pal, (Barbara Roberts) has been impersonating her to
get the ranch. Barbara may not get the ranch but she does get Rex, who is, poor
fellow, trapped by the girl with a tame preacher in the last scene and obliged
to tie the knot.Ruth led in two silent Westerns in 1926, That Girl Oklahoma (she was born there) and Tex, then co-starred with Hal Taliaferro in a talkie in 1931 before doing four with Rex Bell. You can see her too in the 1936 serial Custer's Last Stand (only peripherally about Custer). She retired in 1936. To be brutally frank, she wasn't a terribly good actor but well, you have to go for Tom's daughter.

Poker face

It’s the
usual low-budget affair and it’s quite amusing when the ‘ranch’ fireplace and
wall wobble during the fight.

Unfortunately,
the bad guy is a shyster lawyer of exaggerated hook-nosed appearance, played by
Theodore Lorch, and there is an unpleasant smack of anti-Semitism here. I have
nothing (naturally) against portrayals of shyster lawyers, the term being often
almost tautological, but they really should have cast someone else. Well, it
was 1934.

If as a
Western fan you like 1930s one-hour programmers, then of course you have an embarrassment
of riches before you, and can choose from a huge number. But I always feel that
Rex Bell ones will do you proud. You could also try Idaho Kid or, even better, Broadway to Cheyenne. And there’s no singing, which is good.